The X-Files: Trust No One

I can't wait! The sequel will be released on July 25. I was watching UFO Hunters at History Channel this morning then I remembered X-Files, googled it, searched it in Amazon to see how much the Box set DVD then found out it was already discontinued, searched in TiVo for reruns and recorded its season pass. This is crazy!!! I used to watch it every week and of course I saw the first movie. I'm such a fan.

Darwin hasn't seen any episode so he has to be "X-Filed" before we watch the movie ;)





More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_X-Files

Mid-monthly update

Fitness
All I do is work, work and WORK! I don't have time to go to the gym anymore and I havn't been to my kickbox cardio class for almost a month now. I just get sooo lazy everytime I get home.. I cant even cook.. I just sit at the couch and watch TV. I think I gained a lot of weight coz we always order to go.. but they say that I lose some. Strange.. but I feel restless, overworked and stressed out.

Solution: Wii Fit.. Yup! We just pre-ordered it and we'll pick it up on May 21. Actually, at first I dont wanna get it coz it's just a game and it's so expensive. But when I found out that Best Buy and Walmart just run out stock, and it's selling in eBay for twice its price, I was kinda challenged to look for one. Darwin read from a tech forum that Blockbuster is still pre-selling it, so we went and bought two. We'll sell the other one on eBay =P



Dining out
We missed our weekly-scheduled date night last Friday because Lakers was playing against Utah Jazz for the playoffs. Both of us are Lakers fan, we already have a flag attached to our car window and we don't miss any games. If we're out of town, we Tivo it and watch it via Slingbox. Anyways, the series is tied at 2-2 and we're praying that we'll win this Wednesday.

Solution: Date night will be changed to Thursday temporarily. I'm thinking of going to The Americana in Glendale which just opened a couple of weeks ago.



Recent Date nights:
April 25 - Pho Cafe (Vietnamese) - a lot of beautiful peeps, the look like actors trying to make it in Hollywood.. we're the only Asians there =P

May 2 - Indo Cafe (Indonesian) - I used to take National Blvd when I come home from school and didnt notice this resto. They are Zagat rated and Indo food tastes like Thai food.

Beef Rendang

Ayam Panggang


Parties
April 19 - Janetti celebrated her 23rd birthday last night and we had a blast!! We had dinner at Tokyo Delves then went to Minx to go clubbing.




The night before Janet's birthday, I worked from home for a project release that lasted for 4 hours (6-10pm). There's a lot of issues when we started integrating the first system and all project leads for each department are there. The release needs to be resumed the next day because the servers went down for maintenance. It's just so stressful that I thought I wont be able to make it to the party. I woke up at 7am, finalized all system testing and we're able to complete the release at 12nn. Whoo!

May 3 - We celebrated Cinco de Mayo a couple of days earlier. We had videoke, food, Rock Band, food, GTA 4, and more food!

May 10 - Homecoming for Chris! My cousin is finally back from Iraq. We missed him a lot!


with Chris
with AJ
with Char-Char and Haley


Tin's birthday is coming... something to look forward to this week.

Movies
Cloverfield, Dan in Real Life and The Great Debaters movie marathon. I was really touched by the last movie.. such a great movie. It's a must see!

I also saw Iron Man on May 5 at Arclight after Darwin's Toastmaster.. it's better than Transformers and Spider-man! You must wait for the after credits but I'm not gonna say anything about it coz I love y'all! (keepin it a mystery but I think most peeps know about this =P

We got the sweet seat (ie: best spot)

Tech News
iPhone 3G rumors are circulating all over podcasts, forums, etc. I had my iPhone for almost a year now and I love it! Web 2.0 apps is the best thing that ever happened to iPhone because of the free apps! I've got twitter, multiply, facebook, digg, wikipedia, etc that's customized for the iPhone browser. With the new iPhone SDK, more apps will be available.

More here:
http://darwin23.blogspot.com/2008/05/iphone-sold-out-3g-next.html

My answer: We'll see!

Movies

National Treasurer
One word. Astig!

Planet Terror
Two words. Gross & Gory.

One More Chance
I finally saw the most awaited movie. I was watching Wowowee yesterday when I saw its movie trailer and that the DVD is already out. I called the Pinoy movie rental right away and found out that all One More Chance DVDs were checked out. I asked Darwin to DL the movie and he found it! Yey!

So I watched One More Chance and cried and I cried and then cried. There's a lot of scenes that's just heart breaking.

Fabulous?!

Pink Berry @ Melrose
Fro-yo (short for frozen yogurt). It's one of the celeb hotspots here in LA. Eventhough they just got a bad publicity from an unhappy customer, people still go and buy their famous frozen yogurt. I'm not a yogurt fan but this one tastes soooo good.



Some celeb sightings (from tmz.com)

Janice Dickinson and Paris Hilton

Leonardo DiCaprio and gf

Kirsten Dunst



Pedicure @ Nail4U in Glendale
Pampered myself with spa and pedicure with a friend last Friday. It's been a long time since I had one... I think that was back in August last year. Anyways, there was a 30min wait but it's worth it. I had french tip and I love what she did...

(pix later)

True Religion
I just got my jeans from the alteration shop yesterday. I asked them to keep the original hem of the jeans and they did a pretty good job. It's on sale at Nordstrom Rack for half the price. Good deal huh!.. but that's it. I'm gonna go shopping for the next 2 or 3 months.



TR's Joey Black Stretch Jeans


I found this link while surfing the net on how to hem jeans like a pro.

ETC...
-dinner at Versailles.. one of my fave resto.. it's a Cuban resto and I had their famous garlic chicken.. yummy!
-I tried Kickbox cardio, it was a very intense workout. My co-worker told me to take the Mon/Thu class with Jodi but I think I'll just take the one with Tina. It's more challenging..
-watched Spidey 3 on Saturday night. My rating??? B-
-DVDs that I'm gonna watch: The Queen, Bobby, The Motel, Little Children, Because I Said So, Can't Buy Me Love, Alpha Dog, Dreamgirls, Smokin Aces, Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

300 Spartans and their abs

BONUS vid!!! How they end up with that gorgeous body.



I finally saw the movie last night.. and I'm still drooling. haha It's a good movie, it's NOT as boring as Troy and it's even BETTER than Gladiator.. Look at those abs!!!

AH WOO... AH WOO!!!


Some Links:
- Comic to Screen Comparison
- King Leonidas

Last Saturday, we went out with Sherwin and played some bowling at Pinz in Studio City. Guess who won? It's me!! haha. I had one strike and three spares but I need to be better than that.. =P I think I need more practice at Wii. I thought we're gonna have celebrity sightings coz Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz used to play there. My co-worker also saw Angelina Jolie there when she's still dating Billy Bob. Anyways, we had dinner at Krua Thai afterwards and we ordered the usual... Chicken panang, crispy pork with brocolli and seafood soup.

Sunday, we had dinner at Olive Garden (my first time!!) before watching the movie.. It was OK.. and expensive so Im definitely not gonna go back there. hehe





I watched dvd almost everyday while cooking or while cleaning or while reading magz. So here's my list of movies since March 1 with my ratings (5 as the highest):
- The Prestige: 5
- Stranger than Fiction: 3
- Rock Star: 4
- Empire of the Sun: 4
- The Holiday: 3
- Borat: 5
- Rocky Balboa: 3
- Casino Royale: 5
- Sherry Baby: 1
- Children of Men: 4
- Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo: 4
- Half Nelson: 1

AJ and Kim's visit

Wicker Park


I just watched Wicker Park with my cousin AJ and his girlfriend Kim. This is the 3rd time I saw it and I cried AGAIN... The first was in New York when we're visiting Darwin's friend and the second was when I bought the DVD.

I love the ending... I love this song..

Here are some pix from yesterday. Will post more when Kim sends me the pix from her camera.

AJ spinning
Meeh
Playing Tennis at Wii Sports
Billiards at Wii Play
The Wii effect.. they had fun

Stranger Than Fiction

It's a very funny and UNIQUE movie.. Love the GUI (graphic user interface) visualization in such details. Sometimes, I think that way.. like I want everything in order like aligning the stapler with the tape dispenser, counting my steps, sooo geekish and OC. You should watch it!!! Here's some of my fave quotes. I got this from imdb.com =P

Kay Eiffel: [narrating] Little did he know that this simple seemingly innocuous act would result in his imminent death.
Harold Crick: What? What? Hey! HELLOOO! What? Why? Why MY death? HELLO? Excuse me? WHEN?

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Little did he know. That means there's something he doesn't know, which means there's something you don't know, did you know that?


And some romantic scenes:
Harold Crick: [talking to Ana while holding a cardboard box with multiple small paper bags inside] I brought you flours.

*Which sounds like 'flowers' but he's actually holding flours coz she makes cookies =)

I watched the movie after I cooked afritada. I did grocery before that. I woke up at 9ish.

The Date

Met up at 8pm then went to Pasadena to hang out and watch Music and Lyrics. I actually "forced" Darwin to watch this movie and I think he liked it because Drew Barrymore is there and she's so cute. Got the tickets first at Laemmle's and had dinner at Hurry Curry since the movie starts at 10pm. We got a seat in a flash which is good coz there's only a few people inside. He had Tokyo curry (ground beef with curry and egg) and I had Pork Cutlet with curry on the side. The food was good and I actually liked what Darwin had than mine. I almost finished what's on his plate. =P All restaurants were packed and I remember when we had dinner at Cheesecake Factory 3 years ago for Valentine's, it took us an hour just to wait for a table. Been there, done that.

The movie started with Hugh Grant dancing an 80s song which sounds like A-HA and the song got stuck in my head. It's sooo catchy...

POP! Goes my Heart...


I like the opening song better than what they composed.. haha I might DL it later. Sooo funny.

Lovely sweet night.

The Last Kiss?!

I finally saw the movie "The Last Kiss" last night. It's such a GREAT movie. I had it since last week from Blockbuster (online). I usually watch 6 DVDs in a week, but because of my busy schedule, it took me forever to just watch one. =P What's nice about Blockbuster is that there's no late fees. You can have the DVD as long as you want but they wont send the next movie unless you return what you have.

Anyways, here are the quotes that I like from the movie:

"People know the truth. They may not like it or want to know it, but they always know. Lie and you'll lose her."


"I've been thinking about my life lately, and everything feels pretty planned out. There's no more surprises."

"You can't fail if you never give up."

Sooo profound. I kinda relate to what Jenna has gone through, like when you know everything is doing well until you tip over and you don't know what to do. So I guess you should always have PLAN B. It's A must see for everyone who's having a quarter life crisis.. They call it mid-life crisis on the movie though.. is 30s the NEW mid-age?

I like the soundtrack too, when I heard "Warning Sign" by Cold Play... I was like, I know this song.. and I searched it in Amazon and DL'd at Bearshare. I will DL the whole soundtrack later. =P

Gay theme movies

Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Transamerica... All of them won a Golden Globe.

I just saw Transamerica a couple of hours ago and it's REALLY good. Felicity Huffman's acting got stuck on my head. She's a good actress. They made her look like a transexual.. you won't even notice her as one of the Desperate Housewives. We watched it at Laemmle's in Encino. After the movie, we had lunch at Daphne's Greek cafe and I had gyros pita.



I went shopping at Fashion square afterwards. The year-end-sale season is almost over.. good thing I found a nice jacket at GAP and good pair of jeans at Abercrombie.

Subway, Arclight, Universal City Walk

Last Friday, I got off early from work because I have a dentist appointment.. it's for my surgery tomorrow because I have an impacted tooth.. my gawd.. I hope it doesn't hurt that much. First stop is Bangluck Plaza. I bought BBQ siopao at BBQ Unlimited coz I'm sooo hungry. Parked the car at Universal City and took the subway to Hollywood/Highland. It's been awhile since I took the subway. I take the subway to commute to work when I used to live in downtown. In every station, there's a theme and my fave is the Hollywood/Vine station coz it's all Hollywood.

Click here to view larger pix
The subway: Universal (top) and Hollywood/Vine (botton) stations


Walked a couple of blocks to Arclight Cinema for Mr & Mrs Smith. The dress that Angelina wore when they danced Tango is displayed there. I can't help but notice the BIG clock too. The movie is ASTIG! They look good together... A must see movies especially for couples =P



Click here to view larger pix
(1) You can see the Hollywood Sign from here (2) The Angelina dress (3) The clock (4) Pa-cute pose


After the movie, went back to Universal City Walk and ate at Versailles for dinner. I love that garlic chicken.. yummy!!! Thanks for the wonderful night.



The Hard Rock guitar @ Universal City Walk

Batman Begins.. NOW!

I feel dizzy.. I had 2cups of coffee already but it didn't do any good. Last night, Darwin and I watched Batman Begins at Mann Chinese Theatre in Hollywood/Highland. We wanna watch its midnight screening so we'd be one of the few to see it first.. (Like there's a difference.. hehehe) We decided to go to H&H early to check if there's someone selling Batman t-shirt with its new logo. This Batman-shirt-search started/initiated when we noticed this lady at Knotts Berry farm wearing the Batman Begins t-shirt last Saturday.. Oh, and earlier that night, I went shopping coz Darwin gets off from work late and the mall closes at 9pm. I tried Spencer, Hot Topic and even JC Penney and finally, I found one at Anchor Blue. I thought I got the right one coz it looks "almost" the same as what the Knotts-lady is wearing.. Anyway, we didn't see any shirt in H&H either so we might try Chinatown or maybe after a week, it will be widely available in stores. While killing time, we saw the Batmobile displayed infront of the theatre.

The old Batman logo (top) and the Batman Begins logo (bottom)


Click here to view larger pix
The Tumbler Batmobile @ Chinese Mann


We have "will call" tickets so we bypassed the loooong line.. We got the "sweet" seat.. center and middle row. It helps to be prepared sometimes you know =P. The movie started at exactly 12:45am coz it took 30 more minutes for those sneak peeks. I almost wanna shout.. "C'mon, let's get it started.. I still need to wake up early tomorrow" =P .. I'm not really a Batman fan but this movie is good coz it gave weight and depth on how Bruce Wayne became Batman...My fave line is "Face your fear".. I don't know that he's afraid of bats. Ironic huh?! What do I fear? A lot actually and it's just right to face all of it...

Got home at around 4ish and I only had 3 hours sleep...

Movie Marathon

Saturday, I'm not in the mood to go out so we stayed at home the whole day and watched DVD. Darwin rented Blade 1 and 2 in preparation to watch Blade Trinity. Blade 1 is boring while the sequel is more entertaining coz it has a lot of fight scenes.. But it wasn't that good for Darwin so we didn't watch the 3rd movie installment.

Went to Fry's Topanga to buy an SD card for my brother and to check the Portable DVD player that I want to give Darwin for Christmas. He doesn't want it, neither the 200GB hard drive that I secretly researched and almost purchased. It's hard to think of a good gift for him coz he's so picky.. Went to Circuit City then Nordstrom rack afterwards to do more shopping.. I need to buy warm clothes for our NY trip. On our way home, he asked me if I want to see the light decors in Woodland Hills coz I told him weeks ago that I wanna see one.. Since we're already there, we went to the so called "Candy Lane". A lot of cars are going to that direction so I guess this is something famous.. We got stuck so we decided to leave that place and have dinner (since we're pretty hungry). We ate at Jerry's Famous Deli in Ventura. I had short baby backribs and Darwin ordered corned beef. After dinner, we went back to Candy lane. The christmas light designs are really beautiful. But we have to cut it short coz we'll hear Simbang Gabi at St. Genevieve in the morning the next day.

Sunday, Bishop Solis held the mass at St. Genevieve. He's the 1st Filipino bishop of LA County and his homily strucked me. He's a good speaker. We are breakfast after the mass. It is sponspored by one of the parishian and we had pandesal, corned beef, egg and lugaw. A lot of people were there and took pictures of Bishop Solis. Too bad I dont have my camera with me coz I had the battery charged last night. Watched Collateral at my brother's portable DVD player while doing laundry (mostly comforter) before I send it to the PI.

Shall We Dance?

I just got home after watching "Shall We Dance?" at The Grove with my college friends Mads, Ollie and her bf Jun.. The movie is a chick flick, and there's this scene that really made me shiver. It's the time when John Clark (Richard Gere) came up the escalator in that tux with the red rose for his wife (Susan Sarandon). WOW!!! I almost cried.. The song that's played on that scene is perfect too..



One thing to look out on that movie... My name's up there!!! hehehe Ollie said loudly.. "Hey, that's your name oh!" Yeah, that's the dance studio and it was shown 3x.. It's no biggie.. hehehe



After the movie, we chat some more infront of the dancing fountain... Mads gave me Jon's Xmas gift from last year and she said FINALLY!! LOL.. So Jon, I got it na... thanks!

Before Sunset

We did watch the movie, but it was very unexpected because I'm about to sleep and there's not enough time to catch the last screening (10pm) at Laemmle's Theater in Santa Monica. Only independent films are shown here.





Darwin called me around 9:45pm to mapquest the theatre from my place and it's an 11 minute drive. Im having second thoughts of going but I REALLY want to see it so I took off without wearing any makeup and run towards my parking space to meet Darwin. Both of us are pumped up discussing the possibilities of Jesse and Celine's second meeting and on what their initial reaction would be. Had a hard time looking for a parking space but we did make it. The last ad was playing before the movie starts, Good timing huh!



SPOLIERS!!!

The movie was GREAT. It's the perfect answer to the question "what happened?" in Before Sunrise. Did one or neither of them went back to Vienna after 6 months? Did they make love on Dec 16, 1994? (The only clue I saw was that Celine wasn't wearing the T-shirt under her dress on the next morning, noticed that sweets?)

In "Before Sunrise" they were SO intent on doing the mature things and not exchanging phone numbers or writing each other. Now, nine years later they make arguably an irrational decision out of desperation to be together. The cab scene is my favorite one where Jesse talks about his stagnant marriage and frustrations and Celine was about to stroke his hair but didnt. So real...

I think the ending was perfect. It left me asking "Will they end up together?" Celine's waltz song is about her feelings for Jesse and I teared listening to it..Jesse knows he's gonna miss his plane and he doesn't care. His "I know" is one of the best lines ever said.

Most films I've seen are very predictable but this one takes you through the awkward moments that would occur in REAL situations. A great movie, I'd watch this again and again. Cant wait for its DVD release..

Before Sunrise

Last night, I watched "Before Sunrise" with Darwin in my apartment. Back in 2001, I heard the review from Chico and Delamar's Morning Rush of RX 93.1 and they said that it's a good movie.. I watched it but never get the chance to see its ending because I got REALLLY bored. I stopped watching it by the time they rode the bus in Vienna. That's when the kileg moment starts pala.. I missed it before, good thing I was able to see it and the subtitle really helped me keep up with the movie coz Celine's (Julie Delpy) French accent is hard to catch.. Ethan is super cute and the way he looks at her.. eeewww!!! cheesy.. hehehe Everyone can relate in the movie.. it's the "getting-to-know" each other stage. What made me cry is the time they need to part ways and promised they'd meet after 6 months..

This is the poem from the movie:

Daydream delusion
Limousine Eyelash
Oh, baby with your pretty face
Drop a tear in my wineglass
Look at those big eyes
See what you mean to me
Sweet cakes and MILKSHAKES (laughs)
I am a delusion angel
I am a fantasy parade
I want you to know what I think
Don't want you to guess anymore
You have no idea where I came from
We have no idea where we're going
Launched in life
Like branches in the river
Flowing downstream
Caught in the current
I'll carry you. You'll carry me
That's how it could be
Don't you know me (poet hands poem back)
Don't you know me by now

From Huang's website

I can't wait for its sequel, "Before Sunset" ... I'm sure it will be every bit as good as the first one. I wonder what will be their reaction when they meet again. They never met after 6mos as promised but.. after 9 years.. Oh.. I CANT WAIT NA TALAGA!!! We might watch it this Friday.

Earlier, I ate Krispy Kreme glazed donuts with coffee for dinner (weird 'no?) I dunno, I just craved for it.. I remember the time Darwin surprised me at my old apartment in LA with a dozen of Krispy Kreme donuts coz I told him that it's my fave...

Spider-man 2

June 29 (Tue)
Watched Spider-man 2 on midnight "special" screening at the valley. I was surprised that there's no line. We found out that they already let moviegoers in and the attendant told us that we might get seated around and not in the middle... well, we got the "sweet spot" section as what Darwin calls it. I'm kinda sleepy because I wasnt able to take a nap. I know it will run for 2hrs and I still have work the next day. But it was nice to be one of the few who were able to see it coz regular screening is on June 30. I like the scene in the coffee shop where the car almost hit Spidey and Mary Jane and Dr. Octopus arrived.. that was really cool. I heard that that scene was done in Downtown LA and they just changed the street names for it to look more like New York.




June 30 (Wed)
Darwin went to my apartment. We're supposed to go to 3rd street Promenade to return the Banana Republic sandals he ordered online but when I called BR, they will close in 30mins. Store hours is only until 9pm... tsk.. We ate at Versailles for dinner after having a hard time trying to choose where to go, if it's Thai BBQ or Carl's Jr or Mcdo. SLEEP.

Movie Addict

I watched 50 First Dates and Pulp Fiction, I'll give the reviews later...





I just signed-up for a 2 years supply of DVDs at Columbiahouse.com, I get to choose 5 DVDs for only 49c each and agree to buy 5 more DVDs within the next two years. Here's what i selected:

1) Legends of the Fall - I haven't seen this yet
2) Unfaithful - neither this
3) How to Loosa a Guy in 10 days - nor this
4) Titanic - my all time fave. call me cheesy but it is.. hehehe
5) The Princess Bride - my first choice is Zoolander but since it's not available, I chose this instead. I like this move back early 90s

I was having second thoughts before I gave my credit card info since I made the purchase online. Darwin's gonna tell me what's the catch behind it before I place the order.. (of course there is.. who would give out those DVDs that cheap? hehehe) but whatdhell.. I'm a MOVIE ADDICT.. Actually, from the 250 selections listed on their site, I have seen almost 95% of it =)

*mitzi*